Six Million Children Still Have No Access to PAUD

Koran Sindo, page 2

To date millions of children in Indonesia still lack access to early childhood education (PAUD). Currently, the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemdikbud) is conducting an education mapping of children aged 3-6 years. The preliminary result of the mapping stated that 6 million of 19 million children still have no access to PAUD.

The Director General of Early Childhood Education and Community Education (PAUD and Dikmas) of Kemendikbud Harris Iskandar said yesterday (8/3) in Kemendikbud office that the gross enrollment ratio (APK) for PAUD is only 72 percent. Thus, there are 28 percent of children in remote areas that have no access to PAUD due to geographical, socio-cultural and economic constraints.

Haris explained that Kemdikbud will propose compulsory education (Wajar) for early childhood in the future. However, Kemendikbud still has to conduct the mapping. He said that his party will have conducted a complete mapping within two years to record children’s data in the education primary data (Dapodik).

Harris said that his party has provided educational operational assistance (BOP) to PAUD with an increased budget each year. Last year, the BOP was Rp 2.35 trillion rising to Rp 3.5 triliion this year and Rp 4 trillion next year.

He added, there is a funding scheme for PAUD in the Village Building Index. He believed that the fund will help 6 million children gain access to PAUD. He also said he had held informal talks with the Ministry for Rural Development of Disadvantaged Areas and Transmigration (Mendes) so that every village could build a PAUD facility.